360 Degrees of Mindful Livinghttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living
Putting mindfulness into practice in every aspect of your daily life, with Pavel Somov.Thu, 15 Feb 2018 16:56:05 +0000en-UShourly1360DegreesOfMindfulLivinghttps://feedburner.google.comFearless Ideashttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2018/02/fearless-ideas/
Thu, 15 Feb 2018 13:27:05 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7776Feb 17th, 1600; guy named Giordano Bruno is burnt at the stake. When faced with the sentence, he says to jury: “You who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.”

Elsewhere, in the last months of his life he says:

“There was in me that which no future century will deny to be mine, that which a victor could have for his own: not to have feared to die, not to have yielded, and to have preferred a courageous death to a noncombatant life.”

What did he die for? For a system of ideas. A heretical system of beliefs. For ideas that liberated him from fears. For ideas that foreshowed our modern (and future) understanding of reality and cosmos and ourselves.

The following quote sums up his cosmogenic and cosmological view:

“All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity.”

Imagine having ideas that are that powerful!

He gets the final word:

“I need not instruct you of my belief: Time gives all and takes all away; everything changes but nothing perishes; One only is immutable, eternal and ever endures, one and the same with itself. With this philosophy my spirit grows, my mind expands. Whereof, however obscure the night may be, I await daybreak, and they who dwell in day look for night Rejoice therefore, and keep whole, if you can, and return love for love.”

]]>Christmas Behavior Modificationhttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/12/christmas-behavior-modification/
Sat, 30 Dec 2017 15:30:27 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7762St. Nick came and went. He’s a jolly old guy, for sure. But also a bit of a control freak. What’s the deal with keeping the list of who’s naughty and who’s nice? The spirit of the season, if I understand it correctly, is about giving. A gift for good behavior is not a gift, but a token of behavior modification. A true gift is unconditional. Take a tip from Grandfather Frost, the other jolly old guy from up North (from the Slavic tradition). He also comes over once a year, on New Year. But, unlike St. Nick, Father Frost keeps no lists: naughty or nice, you get a little something from him anyway. Now, that’s giving, that’s love, of the unconditional kind. And – for whatever it’s worth – in my opinion, Grandfather Frost keeps a better diet: instead of milk and cookies, he likes a shot of vodka and a pickle to chase it with.

And let’s face it, this kind of Christmas-style behavior modification is a futile project. From September onward, most of us desperately keep “threatening” our kids with the naughty list status and getting but a lump of coal, but come Christmas morning we still shower our kids with all kinds of gifts. In so doing we profoundly undermine the potency of behavior modification, an otherwise legitimate parenting method. We teach our kids to not take us seriously, to disregard our invocations of consequence. So, my suggestion is simply this: next Christmas season consider ditching the list and unhitching your parental behavior-mod projects from Christmas spirit of (unconditional) love.

]]>Review of “I Am Here Now”https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/12/review-of-i-am-here-now/
Tue, 26 Dec 2017 23:45:47 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7752About two thousand years ago, Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor and a Stoic thinker, implored himself in his own journal: “Throw away your books: stop letting yourself be distracted … Discard your thirst for books … Remember how long you’ve been putting this off, how many extensions (of life) the gods gave you, and you didn’t use them … ”

What was he imploring himself to do? Why was he begging himself to throw away his books, or, at least, to put them aside? Marcus Aurelius was calling on himself to stop accumulating wisdom and knowledge and to go ahead and finally engage in a meditation practice. (The quotation above is from his collection of writings, called Meditations).

The Mindfulness Project are Alexandra Frey and Autumn Totton. I had a pleasure of meeting them a few years ago when they came out to Pittsburgh (where I live) to invite me to be on their advisory board. A year or so ago they came out with a book called “I Am Here Now: A Creative Mindfulness Guide and Journal.”

Prior to writing this review I went to Amazon.com and read through some of the reviews of their book. The book is doing great – great reviews. But I am afraid the book is still underestimated. Some of the reviewers see this book as a charming gift; a few others see it as a kind of introduction to mindfulness meditation and practices. The former are, of course, right – the book is a charming, all-occasion gift. The latter – those who are jonesing for a more in-depth discussion of meditation and mindfulness – are missing the point.

So, here’s my point: if you want to develop a meditation practice or a mindfulness practice or a mindfulness-meditation practice, at some point you need to stop reading books and blogs about meditation and mindfulness, and you need to actually plunge into the practice itself. That’s what Marcus Aurelius was raving about in his old age. And that’s what the “I Am Here Now” book is about. It’s not about reading, it’s about mindful doing … and mindful non-doing. The book is a series of provocative illustrations and experiences, with minimal text and instructions. Each page is a clue. If you follow it, you stand a fairly good chance of finding Reality, as it is, in its fleeting, moment-specific suchness. Each page is a pithy pointer that first leads to yourself and then, past yourself, into the ineffable evanescence of the Moment.

This is not the only book of this kind. On my bookshelves, somewhere, I have a copy of 1971 “Be Here Now” by Ram Dass – it too is an illustrative mind-trip into the nowhere-of-the-moment. I also have a 1972 copy of “10 Ways to Meditate” by Paul Reps. Reps’ book is also thin on text and rich in calligraphy-inspired whimsical doodles. But notice the years – 1971, 1972. It’s been quite a while since anyone has produced this kind of book and, believe me, I’ve had a chance to plow through hundreds of mindfulness- and meditation-oriented books over the last twenty or so years. All these books – the one by The Mindfulness Project and the ones by Ram Dass and Paul Reps – have one important aspect in common. They ask you to let go of your attachment to thinking. They call on you to stop your preparatory procrastinations and to kiss the ever-waiting lips of Reality.

Mindfulness is about finding yourself here, now, in your fleeting, moment-specific form. That is action, of a non-doing kind. The rest is words. It’s time to go beyond words.

]]>Entering What Ishttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/12/entering-what-is/
Thu, 21 Dec 2017 21:00:08 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7750When you maintain a memory of “what was” while processing in parallel “what is,” you end up with a sense of self.

When you let go of “what was” and just stay with “what is,” the sense of separate self disappears.

It is not that difficult to experience this kind of ego-death for a split second.

When this way of being/non-being goes on autopilot, the subjective distinction between you and the Universe at large disappears.

]]>12 Forests of Brajhttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/12/12-forests-of-braj/
Tue, 19 Dec 2017 15:48:48 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7740Braj is an ancient pilgrimage tradition in India which involves a circular path through 12 forests. This path goes nowhere. “Walking the goal-less circuit of Braj, hearing and living the stories of Krishna’s play, has a particular effect: it opens up a new perspective, namely, that all life is lila, or purposeless play.”

In trying to understand the tradition of Braj, it is best to ask not “Who is Krishna?” but “What is Krishna?” Krishna is reality in its “unexpected forms.” Krishna – as a principle – is the “unknowable” quality of reality. The circular futility of Braj is a dance of acceptance of the fundamental uncertainty of reality: “only those who can surrender the desire for mastery [over reality] and let go [of the desire for control and certainty] in a world of uncertainty are free to dance with [Krishna].”

Krishna-view of Reality is that of a “crooked lover.” What is meant by this? Reality cheats and betrays our expectations. Reality is unreliable, tricky. Reality pranks and punks our naive predictive models about What Should Be.

Reality is a series of forests to be lost in. And finding the way (out of one forest of uncertainty) is part of getting lost in yet another forest of illusion.

Realization of the inevitable uncertainty of life is not passive surrender – on the contrary, it is an act of acceptance. It is a joyous, fearless joining in the cosmic dance of Whatever Is.

Life is a pilgrimage, a movement through a given circumstance to another. This process is endless, life-long. So, on this pilgrimage, in this circular search for meaning and destination (destiny), we have but two options – to keep moving forward or to stop and stand still now and then, witnessing the Ordinary Perfection of where (spatially and temporally) we are.

Another calendar circles around us to its arbitrary end. All over the English-speaking world, we are completing yet another seasonal pilgrimage. Minds are a-humming “The 12 Days of Christmas …” What if, in a daring culture-bending thought-experiment, you took Krishna – the “crooked lover” – as your “true love” of the moment, what would you ask for? Ladies dancing? Lords a-leaping? Drummers drumming? Or, perhaps, the serenity of accepting the unknown ahead? The courage to be lost in the woods of existence?

—

References/Related:

D. Haberman (1994), Journey through the 12 Forests

P. Somov (2010), Present Perfect: Letting Go of Control

]]>Acceptance as Gratitudehttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/11/acceptance-as-gratitude/
Thu, 23 Nov 2017 13:02:40 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7735Acceptance (of reality as it is, of this moment as it is) is the greatest form of gratitude.]]>

Acceptance (of reality as it is, of this moment as it is) is the greatest form of gratitude.

]]>Touch a Screen or Touch Realityhttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/11/touch-screens-or-touch-reality/
Fri, 10 Nov 2017 13:08:59 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7727Perhaps, I am being overly dramatic but it seems to me that we – as a species – have entered the age when we are far more likely to forget our kids in a hot car than forget our smart-phones.

Indeed, we have become inseparable from our “devices.” We have become a species of absent-minded, techno-distracted zombies. We no longer notice each other. We maladaptivly jaywalk with our minds buried in our so-called smart-phones. We can’t even go to the bathroom without thumbing through meaningless Facebook posts. We check email with greater diligence than we check in on our kids. While we still remember to walk our dogs, we hardly look at them; instead we pause on sidewalks in random places, in search of the right emoji as we respond to a trivial text. We’ve lost the reaction time on intersections as we bury ourselves in our phones instead of watching the streetlight turn green. I could continue on with endless examples but what’s the point? You know what I am talking about …

We are losing touch with reality, while constantly holding hands with a mostly useless gizmo.

—

Your choice is: to touch each other or to touch your screen; to hold your kid’s hand or to hold a phone in your hand; to be in actual physical touch with What Immediately Is or to be using a virtual opposable thumb online to rubber-stamp another pic of someone’s lunch with your half-hearted approval.

—

In losing touch with Reality, we are losing touch with ourselves.

If so, – and I think it is – the reverse is also true: by getting in touch with Reality, we stand to rediscover ourselves.

]]>Cosmos as a Pethttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/11/cosmos-as-a-pet/
Wed, 08 Nov 2017 14:13:12 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7724Petting a dog is said to have powerful health benefits – a release of oxytocin (a feel-good bonding hormone), a lowering of heart rate and blood pressure. How marvelous!

—

That is the power of touch! And the logic of it!

Oxytocin – the feel-good bonding hormone – is activated by touch.

Makes sense!

To unite, to bond (two surfaces), you have to bring them together until they touch.

And when the two biological membranes – two living skins – realize that the Outside is safe, that the Other is a Friend and not a Foe, a euphoric connection is formed.

Divisive Dualities (Skinthink) – as a result – abate, and Unitive Nonduality (Kinthink) – as a result – arises.

—

Pet a dog.

Pet a cat, if he or she allows it.

Pet a leaf – as you walk by a hedge, run your hands against the leaves.

]]>Total Acceptancehttps://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/2017/10/total-acceptance/
Sun, 01 Oct 2017 08:50:24 +0000https://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindful-living/?p=7721When I look at the nameless reality of Whatever Currently Is (right now) through the lens of mindfulness and presence, everything relaxes me, everything feels “ok” and “normal” and “simply such” – even illness and death and violence and war and… You name it! Everything – the entire Ordinary Perfection of it all.

In 1710 German polymath Gottfried Leibniz says: we live “in the best of all possible worlds.” Exactly. And you don’t have to be good at math to figure this out: reality always adds up to itself – reality is never less and never more than everything it can be at any given moment. The rest is the stress and tension of idealistic expectations. Reality does not shortchange itself. All that can be now, now is.

Total, 360-degrees acceptance is the letting go of perfectionistic dissatisfaction about the current state of reality. Acceptance is the beginning of relaxation. To relax, accept. A basic formula of self-care that suits any circumstance.

“What is love?” is one of these perennial questions that thinkers have been musing over since day immemorial. It’s a kind of question only fools dare to answer. I am one of these fools. So, here’s my attempt to define what love is. Love is an interplay of Physical Intimacy and Emotional Intimacy.

Love = Physical Intimacy + Emotional Intimacy

The interplay of Physical Intimacy and Emotional Intimacy flows in and out of each other like a seamless leg-knot of a tango pirouette, in an ever tightening double helix of bodymind feedback. But, if unsupported, this double helix of human connection frays and unravels. The task is to try to tighten the knot of your love by reinforcing the sinews of support.

Emotional Intimacy

Physical intimacy needs no definition. Emotional intimacy, however, is a bit harder to define. But, being the fool that I am, I’ll still try. Emotional intimacy: it’s a combination of Intimate Knowledge of each other and Validating Support:

Emotional Intimacy = Intimate Knowledge + Validating Support

Physical intimacy comes and goes, as formative as it is in the beginning of a romance, with time it tends to take the backseat to emotional intimacy. If sex (or erotic touch) goes, that’s not necessarily the end of an intimate relationship. But if emotional intimacy goes, love peters out without much delay. Emotional intimacy, as I see it, is the essence of love. Which is why emotional intimacy, when shared with someone else, can be perceived as a threat to the primary romantic relationship. So much so that being emotionally intimate with someone other than your primary partner has come to be culturally viewed as an emotional affair (a term that I personally feel is more toxic than useful). But emotional intimacy is no sin. It is a high-quality human connection that is built on mutual understanding and on mindful attendance to each other.

Intimate knowledge, the component of emotional intimacy, is not the carnal knowledge of what’s underneath each others’ garments. Emotionally-intimate knowledge is the knowledge of each others’ emotional interior, the knowledge of each others’ interests, the understanding of each others’ narrative. It’s a history of mutual self-disclosure, a shared courage of authenticity. The goal is to help you build (or rebuild) a radically humanistic relationship, a relationship that is predicated on fearless love, compassion and mindful presence. Put differently, the task is to rekindle an emotional affair with your primary partner.

Crutch of Attraction

Attraction is one of those crutches that can support an otherwise dissatisfying relationship for quite some time. Another such crutch is a sense of duty or loyalty for the sake of loyalty, i.e. the Crutch of Commitment. Another such crutch is Circumstance: people stay together because of kids or financial stability. Another such crutch is Friendship. I’ve seen quite a few couples that were coming to slowly realize that while they enjoy each others’ friendship and companionship they are long past being each others’ lovers.

There are many different emotional prosthetics of this kind, many different ways to prop up a dissatisfying relationship. But a crutch is only a crutch – a leg (of support) is better! The Crutch of Attraction is, commonly, a prerequisite for physical intimacy. Love trivially begins with attraction but has a way of running out even if attraction remains. Thus, attraction is not enough.

Attraction while not easy to define, is easy to tell. People “just know” if they are attracted to so-and-so or not. But what is attraction? To understand attraction you have to understand how mind works. Mind is an information-processing system that tracks patterns of interest. We get information about the world through our senses (eyes, ears, etc) and we organize it into patterns and we track the patterns of importance. Attraction is pattern-driven. Attraction is about the sensory patterns that offer us an enjoyable, stimulating experience. Romantic attraction is a complex pattern of interest: we don’t just fall in love with body, we also fall in love with mind, with style, with tone, with vibe.

As the relationship progresses, we are continuously exposed to the pattern of our interest – we learn to zoom in on it, we get really good at recognizing it. As a result, we are able to see some configuration of what we like long after the rest of the pattern is eroded by time, circumstance and relational dynamics. The physical aspects of the pattern are particularly enduring: a person can lose or gain weight, their face might age and wrinkle, yet most of us can easily find that echo of beauty, that trace of handsomeness, that Gestalt of cuteness or that elegant torso or leg silhouette that we have fallen for a long time ago.

We remain attracted even if we can no longer stand our partners. It is exactly for this reason that attraction can outlast relational satisfaction and can misleadingly hold and prop up the relationship way past its emotional expiration date. In my work with couples I have met quite a few folks that kept seeing (and projecting) the romantic pattern that no longer was there.

Breaking the Pattern of Oversimplification

Our ability to doggedly see and chase the pattern of attraction (even when it’s essentially gone) is one of the mechanisms that can carry a relationship for quite some time, way past its emotional expiration date. Since love trivially begins with attraction, couples often intuitively try to patch up the gaps of emotional intimacy with attraction-targeted solutions: they try to lose weight, get on Viagra or get a breast augmentation to spice up their sex life, have candle light dinners or have a romantic get-away, or buy each other lingerie or gym memberships. This is desperately misplaced. Sure, there is something to be said about trying to re-stimulate each other (after all, human mind does tend to habituate pretty easily). But, as I see it, these solutions are too tactical, too short-term, too naïve. Without addressing the deficits of emotional intimacy, better physical intimacy is just a refurbished crutch, rather than a solid relational leg to stand on.

In sum, the challenge is about breaking the pattern of oversimplification, about learning to wake up and learning to keep your partner awake – no, not in the middle of the night but in the middle of the waking hours. The grand task is validation and forgiveness. Or, as I metaphorically call all of this, about cultivating the legs of validating support. A pair of good-looking legs might have started off your romance but it’ll take a totally different kind of set of legs to keep this relationship afoot. The challenge is about standing up (asserting), standing with (empathy), standing your ground (boundaries), and understanding (emotional intimacy).